Modernizing Ukraine's Army: Shedding Soviet Legacy.

A culture war is brewing within Ukraine’s armed forces between top-down Soviet military thinking and bottom-up Western military culture, hindering Ukraine’s adaptation and learning, and hurting its performance in the war against Russia. The culture war is largely about leadership, with some army officers embracing the Western philosophy of “mission command” while a large number of Ukrainian officers, including far too many in the most senior ranks, curtail such initiative in favour of rigid operational orders often issued by headquarters far from the frontline. The ongoing culture war is making Ukraine’s transformation into a 21st-century fighting force an uphill battle.